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104087Re: [evol-psych] More political karma

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Wade

May 1, 2010

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Actually immigration was only a very minor part of what Mrs Duffy was questioning Brown on. Her main gripe was that she was paying tax even as a widow on a very modest income, this spilled into questions on the National Debt, a complaint that hard working people like her were paying taxes whereas assorted benefit junkies were milking the system the phrase where are all these Eastern European's flocking from was a throw away remark.

Labour has of course tried to spin the thing that this is the reason GB called her a bigot. I'm not at all sure that is right. I think GB was just aghast that any real member of the public had been allowed to come and ask him the type of questions which almost all voters want some answer to. The spin doctors have sought to focus on the East Europeans comment as a way of effectively saying: Well we know it was very impolite to cal her a bigot - but infact we all know she is.

In any case it's a mistake to say that this mistake cost him the election as he had pretty much lost it already. My assessment was that the probability of a Labour victory was reduced from about 4% to 3% (roughly what the book makers are saying too I believe.) The chances of the Labour Party itself still remaining in power look higher as the rise of the Liberal Democrats has made the whole election wide open in that no-one really knows how much tactical voting will take place on voting day.

For what its worth my assessment of the probabilities would be:

Conservative majority Government: 20%

Conservative minority Government: 35%

Conservative/Lib Dem Coalition: 20%

Labour/Lib Dem Coalition: 15%

Labour Minority Government: 5%

Labour Majority Government: 3%

Lib Dem Government/other: 2%

For those not familiar with the British electoral system this might seem odd given that the Polls are saying that the overall votes

might be shared approximately:

Conservatives: 36%

Lib Dems: 32%

Labour: 25%

Other: 7%

This differences arises because Labour votes are highly concentrated in poorer inner cities, whereas Conservatives do well in more wealthy suburban and rural areas whereas the Lib Dem vote has traditionally been much more evenly spread. Labour's best chance or retaining power would seem to be that the Lib Dems do better than expected to make a Conservative Majority or Minority Government impractical and that the Conservatives refuse to countenance electoral reform as the price for Lib Dem support. In this case the Lib Dems may form a coalition with Labour but I would have thought that given that almost nobody inside or outside the Labour party actually thinks GB is the right man for the job this coalition may be lead by Nick Clegg or one of BG's lieutenants.

This week, prime minister Gordon Brown derided
and vilified a life-long Labor party supporter as a 'bigot' for daring
to
ask him questions about immigration. Realizing the scale of the
electoral
disaster he had just created, he panicked and dispatched an email
bulletin
to all his supporters apologizing profusely for the mistake. As he
rightly predicted in the email bulletin to his supporters, the media
have taken him to the cleaners.

This simple mistake has probably cost him the election.

This is particularly karmic, as the Labor party purports to benefit the
British workers, but has, in fact, been working to replace the native
British with an immigrant-client electorate.